Why would a Big Daddy need
to eat potato chips?

How come, if those walls
have been leaking for at least ten years, the whole city isn’t
one big fishbowl?

Why does Brigid Tenenbaum
trust me with protecting her and the Little Sisters when she considered
Big Daddies simply “smelly, disgusting things” the first
time around?

And why, in the name of
all that is holy, if I’m in my Big Daddy suit, are splicers
still kicking my ever-lovin’ ass?

Back
from my return to Rapture, my cranium is buzzing with questions and
concerns. Don’t misunderstand me; Bioshock 2
is nearly every bit as enjoyable, if not as innovative, as its successor.
It just possesses some niggling details I had to overlook during its
duration to get the most out of it.

See, in the first title,
the player filled the shoes of a plane crash survivor named Jack who
must descend into the gameworld via a lighthouse lest he drift out
to sea.

Released in 2007, that
game garnered positively mammoth critical and commercial success so
it was a no-brainer that a sequel was a-brewin’. Not only that
but this time, instead of being chased around by those lumbering,
drill-wielding behemoths, you are one, a prototype known as Project
Delta. It soon becomes apparent, however, that you’re “Big
Daddy Lite.” At least for three- fourths of the game.

Megalomaniac Andrew Ryan’s
presence can still be seen and heard via voice recordings, statues,
displays and other artifacts, but the real antagonist this time around
– ten years later — is Sofia Lamb. Lamb was one of the initial
movers and shakers in Rapture, all plying “Health and Happiness
Through Genetics” in Ryan’s underwater metropolis before
the populace caved under its own conflicting philosophies, politics
and grand visions and anarchy ran rampant.

She is dismayed to find
you alive (I won’t drop any specific plot points, have no fear)
and still trying to connect with your bonded “Little Sister,”
her daughter Eleanor, which I guess makes you Sofia’s husband?
I didn’t quite follow that thread, because I thought all along
that Big Daddies were superhuman beasts tasked only with protecting
the Adam harvested by their assigned, individual Little Sisters from
corpses.

Anyway,
she harps over the public address system so often that her voice grates
on the nerves, always calling “The Family” together to
thwart your efforts. She chides Subject Delta by letting him know
that “out of my pain, paradise was born, and you have no place
in paradise.” (For that matter, Andrew Ryan left you a message
that there is no place for you on the surface, either.)

Adam and Eve remain the
substance by which you survive, supplying ever-increasing abilities
such as electrocuting human enemies, cameras and security bots, hypnotizing
foes into decimating each other and unleashing a swarm of hornets
to sting a fool or three to death.

Despite these superpowers,
which are literally at your fingertips (wouldn’t Bill Buckner
have appreciated the “freeze” plasmid that day in 1986)
the game, at least for me, was considerably more difficult than the
original.

Here’s why.

Assuming both games are
set to “veteran” difficulty (which accesses all of the
Xbox Live achievements), steps for obtaining Adam in the first game
were A.) Antagonize Big Daddy (which won’t attack until you
do, but will growl really loudly if you get too close to the girl)
and lure him into a mess of trap rivets or whatever it takes to drop
him; B.) Confront distraught Little Sister and either rescue her to
collect a little bit of Adam or “harvest” her to net copious
amounts of the stuff. ‘Nuff said.

That doesn’t cut
it ten years later. Not if you wanna be the Big Daddy. Now it’s
A.) Irritate fellow Big Daddy and somehow bring him down; B.) Adopt
or harvest the Little Sister; C.) If you adopt her, shield her from
the torrent of splicers who swarm when she collects more Adam from
corpses – twice; D.) Bring her to one of those vents (or as
she calls them, “hidey holes”) so she can go to sleep.
You better stock up on health kits, Eve hypos and ammunition because
you still aren’t done running for your life. E.) Each time you
take a sister off her “route” you alert the “Big
Sister,” in essence a female version of yourself, only about
1,000 times quicker and nimbler and possessed of a shriek like a very
loose fan belt.

You
are introduced to this lovely lass early on and it’s unfortunate
that she is reduced to somewhat of a “boss fight” after
each little sister endeavor. Like the Big Daddies of various “models,”
Big Sisters tote Adam you can collect from their still, prone bodies,
however long it takes you to get them to that point.

Besides the aforementioned
plasmid powers, which operate from your left arm, a smorgasbord of
projectile weapons is on offer, from the rivet gun, shotgun, speargun,
grenade-launcher, machine gun and more. All possess three types of
ammunition depending on the upcoming encounter.

Got a gaggle of splicers
hunkering over a trash can fire up ahead? Line up a rocket spear.
Fun every damned time, and it should be, because there is seemingly
no end to the denizen roaming the halls of Fontaine Futuristics, Siren
Alley, Pauper’s Drop and other environs. And every one, from
the run-of-the-mill thug to the transporting, fireball-hurling “Houdini”
splicer, is still full of piss and vinegar from overindulging in Adam,
and eager to spill your blood. Or, um…motor oil; I still can’t
decide if Big Daddies are human or once were or not.

Plus, you always have your
handy-dandy drill for chewing through all the tomfoolery. There’s
even a plasmid obtained late in the game for those wanting to focus
strictly on drill usage for the authentic Big Daddy experience.

The only issue with weapons
and plasmids is there’s still no way to cycle backwards so if
you skip the one you wanted you have to file through the logjam to
get back to it. In the heat of battle, this can be trying.

Perhaps I’m being
too demanding of Bioshock 2, with its fantastic,
well-realized world with a setting like no other. Memorable scenes
and occurrences abound.

In addition to choosing
whether to harvest little sisters or be their savior, there are other
moral conundrums along the journey.

Grace
Holloway, a former matinee star, wanted children of her own but was
unable to. Lamb has persuaded her to thus join “the Family”
and its rejection of the “self,” which was the centerpiece
of Ryan’s designs upon settling Rapture. Holloway joins Lamb
in deriding you over the PA, damning your very existence and questioning
the validity and righteousness of your search for Eleanor. Upon encountering
her in a secret room, you can choose to simply take the key she possesses
and let her live out her days in squalor or put her out of her misery.

Stanley Poole, a former
newspaperman (and dirtbag, although being a former reporter myself,
I found Poole giving the press more of a bad name), has holed himself
up in a train terminal room and saddles you with “dealing with”
three little sisters. And their respective Big Daddies, of course.
Once his true motives are out (courtesy of Lamb) you have the choice
of either killing him or walking away, too. Gotta admit I loved watching
him writhe with a gutful of phosphorous buckshot.

I enjoyed simply creeping
around and hearing a female deranged maniac, apparently another actress
in a former life, mutter “A fan?” before dashing at me
with blood in her eyes.

I relished the chance to
plod around on the other side of the glass, with the fishes and the
occasional great white shark (don’t get excited, there’s
no battle to be had) despite how few and far between those moments
were.

And those who read my review
of the first Bioshock
know how much I loved the flying security droids, and this time you
can keep them in tip-top shape with a snap of your fingers! They are
always handy in a firefight, although they tend to block doorways,
especially if you employ more than one.

It’s
unfortunate that the exact same voices (with little variety) from
the first game were utilized, and I can’t tell you enough how
tired I got hearing the virtually identical little sisters whimper,
“Hurry, Mr. Bubbles, we’ll miss the angels dancing!”
or “I’m ready for dreamtime, Mr. B.” The first couple
of times were cute, but not eight levels in.

There’s so much more
I can say, but it’s better if you stop reading and get to playing.
While some may say developer 2K Marin has let Bioshock 2
fall into the dreaded sophomore slump, I don’t necessarily think
that’s true. It had to be unnerving to try to top such a runaway
bestseller of a new property. Let’s see what the future brings;
I seriously doubt with a capital D that after reaching the surface
a second time (again, there are several endings depending how much
of a maniac you were) this is where the story ends.

Still, I don’t know
what the Splicers have been eating for ten years, because there’s
a bounty of pep bars, canned ham, bottled water, Chechnya vodka, and
yes, potato chips everywhere. Why would a Big Daddy need ‘em,
and how would he eat ‘em through that mask anyway?